For over seventeen years, Lori E. Hunter has traveled extensively throughout
Virginia and North Carolina collecting oral histories and researching her
family. The fruits of her travels have been plentiful and she has traced her
enslaved ancestors to the 1750s in Charleston, SC, Central Virginia, and
Warren and Johnston Counties in North Carolina. For the past seven years,
she has concentrated on identifying the slave owning families of her
ancestors and through wills, probate and court records, she has successfully
identified slave owners of her Fleming, Hunter, Jerman, Roy, Smith, Sanders,
Whitley, Wortham, Thornton, Williams, and Wynn ancestors. She continues her
search to contact their descendants and to identify and visit the plantations
where her ancestors lived.
Ms. Hunter served as the president of the District of Columbia Genealogical
Society from 1991 until 1996. Since 1994, she has been a volunteer at the
Church of Latter Day Saints Family History Center in Kensington, Maryland.
She has presented workshops during Black History month for numerous
organizations. In recent years, in addition to her own research, she has
mentored many beginning researchers. She has presented at the Afro-American
Historical & Genealogical Society Conference, the Federation of Genealogical
Societies Conference, and the National Genealogical Society Conference. Ms.
Hunter is an accomplished author. Her most recent article "African-American
Genealogical Research: The Triumphs and the Challenges" appeared in Everton's
Genealogical Helper (Jan-Feb 2000).
Lori E. Hunter is a native of Richmond, Virginia and has resided in
Washington, DC since 1982. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Howard
University with a B.A. in Economics and has done graduate studies in
Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has attended many
workshops and conferences to better her understanding of history and
genealogy.